Revelry, by Carmen Jenner

Shame scale: I feel like I should be more ashamed of book this than I am, to be honest. You can certainly not lend this one to your dad, or your sweet old great Aunt, or walk into a church carrying it.

Fantasy casting: Adam Levine, Lauren Ambrose, Josh Mario John

Book Description:

Cooper Ryan is living the dream. Between the parties with rock royalty, booze, groupies and performing to crowds of thousands with his band Taint, life seems pretty sweet. There’s just one thing missing: the feisty little red-head that took his baby and ran off with his heart. Throwing himself into music is the only thing keeping him sane.

Until a run-in with a nonplussed, package-wielding PA throws everything off balance.

Ali Jones is having a craptastic life. Her grandmother died, leaving her homeless, penniless, and alone, and her boyfriend left her for a tramp who takes her clothes off for money. That’s why when she lands her dream job at a record company it seems like it’s too good to be true.

Because it is.

Slapped with an ultimatum, Ali must decide if facing the horror of the unemployment line is a fate worse than going on the road with four rowdy rockers hell-bent on making her life misery.

He’s adored by millions. She’s not even loved by her cat.

Can they ignore their hatred long enough to survive the tour from hell? Or will their chemistry force everything to come crashing down around them?

Oh guys, this book. I started following Love Between the Sheets on Facebook, and those ladies are constantly posting books to tempt me even though our family library cup already runneth over. When Taint popped up I HAD to have it, rock star romances are a big catnip, as is hate into love, and tour buses (being on tour is kind of like being at summer camp, which is also hot). Taint gave me all the stuff I expected and about a million things I didn’t, in all the best ways.

Ali, who I’m a pretty big fan of, is not living her best life. She’s sleeping in her car, her ex boyfriend is an awful douche who moved a stripper into their apartment without asking and then started screwing her, and she has zero living family members. The only semi good thing she has going is that she landed a shitty job at a record company that she wants to parlay into her dream job of music management someday. Except she has the bad (?) luck of stumbling into a management meeting for the newly christened Taint (I KNOW), literally stumbling and landing on her knees in front of Cooper Ryan, the band’s lead singer. He’s nursing a fierce broken heart over an entirely different red-head and decides on a whim to add her to his negotiations. Ali tries to protest that this isn’t her job, not at all what she was hired for, and no way is she going to become the personal assistant to this band of assholes. She’s overruled and now she’s living in her car, showering at a local gym, AND being sexually harassed like its her job – which it kind of is.

Cooper has it hard for Ali, he’s not sure at first if it’s just because she reminds him of his ex, or if he likes her for her. But either way he wants to see if fucking her will get Ali AND his ex out of his system. Levi wants to sleep with her too, Levi of the infamous 12 inch cock (did we google 12 inch cock? Only we and our filthy shameful google search history know the answer to that), and the boys in the band arrange a bet to see who will sleep with Ali and when and where. These boys like their bets. Zed, the drummer who is like an overgrown puppy on speed, is ring leadering this and lets Alli stay with him until the tour leaves town. She sleeps on top. Of his bunk beds. Because he’s adorable and has bunk beds like Tom Hanks in Big — I’m scared drummers might really be my thing— and Ali isn’t having sex with ANYONE until the tour actually kicks off.

Here’s the deal, I really want to discuss this book in detail, but I also don’t want to ruin it for anyone who wants to read the book. So. I’m going to instruct anyone who wants to be surprised to scroll from one hot dude picture to the other hot dude picture and don’t read anything in between. Ok, ready?

I felt like I needed a special trash book bingo card for this book. Mary is further into this Shame Book rabbit hole than I am, and has maybe popped a lot of her dirty book cherries already but Taint did a lot of my popping.

First: the circle jerk. That’s right, all the boys in the band decide to jerk off together, in to containers to see who releases the most…fluid. Ali is taking a nap in her bunk when they decide to do this, and wakes up to see the boys just going at it. And when they realize that she is watching things go a little awry and well… jizz everywhere.

Second: Cooper and Ali are starting to make some headway, even though both he and Levi are vying pretty hard to get that ass, Ali feels more of a connection to Cooper. Until he gets very very drunk and calls her by his ex’s name. So she flees. And ends up sleeping with Levi, which I was not expecting. We are already out way of any standard romance story lines here. And Levi really does have a 12 inch trouser snake:

I wrap the blanket around my body and hobble from the room – yes, you read that right – I hobble, because holy huge dick batman, I feel like I rode a stallion bareback halfway to fucking Texas

Third: Cooper isn’t happy that Levi bagged Ali before he did, but instead of getting mad in a traditional way he decides that to fix things he and Ali need to have sex WITH Levi. Surprise threesome! Bingo!

I could take one for the team – or two for the team – as the case may be.

We fell asleep in a puppy pile, our bodies a tangle of tired limbs.

I feel like Jenner put that puppy pile line in there just for me, good work, Miss.

And they continue to operate as a triumvirate (when I learned that word from Julius Caesar, I bet this is not how my English teacher envisioned me using it). On the tour bus, in the back of a limo, in an elevator that gets stuck between floors with no lights on. Elevator threesome! Bingo!

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Spoilers over! Focus on the hot guy with the kitty and don’t look up.

Ali and Cooper have a unique set of problems to work through to get to their HEA, but I was happy to stick with them while they figured things out. I enjoyed the dialog in this one, Ali is funny and spunky and handles all the crazy that has become her life in ways that seem realistic – that is when how completely unrealistic the book events are is taken into account. The sex is plentiful, varied, and hot. All points to the author on that front. It has been a while since a book surprised me so greatly and I sent so many messages to Mary and Paperback Purist with so many exclamation points. I’m recommending this one with the caveat that its dirty dirty, not just a little dirty, so be prepared. I’m also totally going back to read the author’s other books! She has me hooked.